A video published by Buzzfeed shows the Rev. Rafael Cruz encouraging members of the Western Williamson County Republican Club on Aug. 21 to purchase "Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed" authored by Jason Riley, an African-American member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
"Jason Riley said in an interview, Did you know before we had minimum wage laws black unemployment and white unemployment were the same? If we increase the minimum wage, black unemployment will skyrocket. See, he understands it, but the average black does not."

Cruz also recited a conversation he said he had with an African-American pastor in Bakersfield, California: "I said, as a matter of fact, 'Did you know that Civil Rights legislation was passed by Republicans? It was passed by a Republican Senate under the threat of a filibuster by the Democrats,'" Cruz said. "'Oh, I didn't know that.' And then I said, 'Did you know that every member of the Ku Klux Klan were Democrats from the South?' 'Oh I didn't know that.' You know, they need to be educated."

“We have our work cut out for us,” he said. “We need to send Barack Obama back to Chicago. I’d like to send him back to Kenya, back to Indonesia.” He went on to say, “We have to unmask this man. This is a man that seeks to destroy all concept of God. And I will tell you what, this is classical Marxist philosophy. Karl Marx very clearly said Marxism requires that we destroy God because government must become God.”

Rafael Cruz, at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas on August 20, 2013. He was there to discuss the push to remove funding for federal health care law, also called Obamacare. (Michael Ainsworth/The Dallas Morning News)

Photo By Pat Sullivan/File Photo

In an April 25, 2013, speech to a local Tea Party group in Hood County, the Rev. Rafael Cruz warned about “death panels” under Obamacare, according to The Daily Beast. He also said the federal government wants to confiscate “our fortunes.”

Cruz went on to lie about Obama’s record on abortion. “Do you realize,” he asked a room of conservatives, “the first bill President Obama signed into law was to legalize third trimester abortions?” (The first law Obama signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, according to The New York Times.)

He turned to Kermit Gosnell, an abortion provider convicted of murdering babies in 2013, saying Obama “probably doesn’t have any problem with what this butcher in Philadelphia is doing.”

At the July 5, 2013
FreedomWorks’ Free the People Event in Salt Lake City, Pastor Rafael Cruz bashed President Barack Obama's State of the Union comments concerning climate change, likening him to Fidel Castro, The Daily Beast reported.

In his 2013 State of the Union address, Obama said he would “direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy” if Congress didn't act on climate change.

Cruz called that segment of the speech “the most ominous words I’ve ever heard.” Cruz continued, “Not much different than that old bearded friend that I left behind in Cuba, governing by decree, by executive order, just like a dictator, like Fidel Castro.”

During an October 17, 2013 interview with Glenn Beck, Pastor Rafael Cruz called the U.S. media a “ministry of misinformation” used by the federal government to churn out propaganda to support liberal causes, according to The Daily Beast. “They just tell us what they want us to hear. They are rewriting history…because they have an agenda. And unfortunately the agenda is an evil agenda. It’s an agenda for destroying what this country is all about,” he said.

At a October 19, 2012, gathering of Grassroots America We the People in Tyler, the Rev. Rafael Cruz said, “We are buying 40 percent of our oil from our enemies…Our enemies control the energy that we use or do not use.”

At the Aug. 10, 2013, Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, the Rev. Rafael Cruz called same-sex marriage a government plot to destroy the family construct and establish socialism, The Daily Beast reported.

“Socialism requires that government becomes your god. That’s why they have to destroy the concept of God. They have to destroy all loyalties except loyalty to the government. That’s what’s behind homosexual marriage. It’s really more about the destruction of the traditional family than about exalting homosexuality, because you need to destroy, also, loyalty to the family.”

During a July 23, 2014, segment on the radio show "Faith and Liberty," the Rev. Rafael Cruz responded to a question about whether President Barack Obama wanted to confiscate firearms: “Well, of course, you have got to realize that is all about control. You look at history, Stalin took out the guns, then killed twenty million people; Mao took out the guns, then killed fifty million people. Every society where government has taken the guns away from the population, then they’ve used them against the population,” the liberal group Right Wing Watch reported.

During the same July 23, 2014 radio segment on the show "Faith and Liberty," Pastor Rafael Cruz said President Barack Obama and Fidel Castro both “operate by the same rulebook” in their moves to “embrace socialism,” “eliminate the concept of God” and “make the people serfs of the government," the liberal group Right Wing Watch reported.

“As a matter of fact, I think if the left had their way, they would do away with the whole Bill of Rights,” he said.

The Rev. Rafael Cruz told the Road to Majority Summit in June 2014 to stop electing "the village idiot," referring to President Barack Obama, and encouraged attendees to assert right-wing, religious control “over the seven forces that shape and control our culture: (1) Business; (2) Government; (3) Media; (4) Arts and Entertainment; (5) Education; (6) Family; and (7) Religion.” Cruz said the church should have “an influence upon every area of society,” according to the liberal group Right Wing Watch.

“Indeed we should have an influence upon arts and entertainment, upon media, upon sports, upon education, upon business, upon government,” he said.

Pictured, then-candidate Ted Cruz (right)), David Dewhurst’s main rival for the Republican nomination for the open U.S. Senate seat, lines up with other candidates before Sunday's service at Cornerstone Church. May 27, 2012. With Cruz is his wife, Heidi Cruz, 4-year-old daughter Caroline, held by his father, Rafael Cruz.

Photo By Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News

The Rev. Rafael Cruz, father of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told attendees at the Family Research Council’s annual Watchmen on the Wall briefing on May 22, 2014 that the Bible has voting advice for Christians, according to Time magazine. “Let me shock you a little bit,” he said Thursday in Washington, D.C. “Did you know that the Bible tells you exactly who to vote for?” Cruz cited Exodus 18:21: “Moreover you shall select from all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, ruler of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.”

“If the righteous do not run for office, if the righteous are not even voting. . . that leaves the wicked electing the wicked,” Cruz continued. “We get what we deserve.”

Pictured, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, addresses an audience at the RedState Gathering in Fort Worth on Friday, August 8, 2014. Officials said about 500 people registered for the event.

Photo By Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News

The Rev. Rafael Cruz, father of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told panelists at the National Religious Broadcasters convention Feb. 25, 2014 that he believes "sexual orientation is a choice, it’s not a civil right,” according to the liberal Right Wing Watch. The panel was discussing anti-gay discrimination in the private sector.

“The left is trying to redefine the issue as a civil right, not as a personal choice. They have gone to the extent to even try to make it illegal for counselors to administer to these people that have certain sexual tendencies to try to work with them from the Christian, biblical standpoint,” Cruz said.

Pictured, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, addresses an audience at the RedState Gathering in Fort Worth on Friday, August 8, 2014. Officials said about 500 people registered for the event.

Photo By John Davenport / San Antonio Express-News

Pastor Rafael Cruz, father of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, falsely claimed San Antonio's anti-discrimination ordinance — recently updated to include protections on sexual orientation and gender identity — would allow city officials to levy fines to preachers who recite from the Bible, according to the liberal Right Wing Watch.

“All we have to do is turn on the news and every day we see more and more encroachment upon pastors from this administration,” Cruz said. “All they have to do is be aware of what’s happening around us and to be aware, for example, that in the city of San Antonio, if a pastor speaks on Romans 1, he could be even fined $500 a day until he retracts what he said.”

Pictured, Senator Ted Cruz discussed immigration during an address to the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce earlier this summer. One of our readers criticizes the senator for his stance on immigration, including the recent influx of people from Central America.

“The administration is not concerned about lifting anybody out of poverty," he said. "They want them to continue in dependency so they can buy their votes.”

Pictured, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, right, with Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott, talks to the media outside a temporary shelter for unaccompanied minors who have entered the country illegally at Lackland Air Force Base, Monday, June 23, 2014, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

“There is nothing scientific about evolution,” Cruz said. “Evolution is one of the strongest tools of Marxism because if they can convince you that you came from a monkey, it’s much easier to convince you that God does not exist."

Pictured, Sen. Ted Cruz.

SAN ANTONIO — Black people "need to be educated" to stop supporting minimum wage laws, the father of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told a gathering of Republicans in Central Texas in August.

"Jason Riley said in an interview, Did you know before we had minimum wage laws black unemployment and white unemployment were the same? If we increase the minimum wage, black unemployment will skyrocket. See, he understands it, but the average black does not."

Cruz also recited a conversation he said he had with an African-American pastor in Bakersfield, California.

"I said, as a matter of fact, 'Did you know that civil rights legislation was passed by Republicans? It was passed by a Republican Senate under the threat of a filibuster by the Democrats,'" Cruz said. "'Oh, I didn't know that.' And then I said, 'Did you know that every member of the Ku Klux Klan were Democrats from the South?' 'Oh I didn't know that.' You know, they need to be educated."

A listing for the event invited attendees to "come listen to Rev. Cruz speak passionately on what can be done to return our nation to the principles that made America exceptional."

A call to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz's office requesting comment was not returned.

Scroll through the slideshow to see Rafael Cruz's history of controversial statements.